Mash night before, boil in morning

[ILMSTMF]

QUOTE

I had built a platform to mount my burner and pump on with nice sized wheels under it. Roll it out to the driveway, dump the water in - at that time malt extract brewing - do my boil, turn off the burner and roll it back into the garage - being careful not to slosh- cool and pump into my fermenter. No lifting at all hot or cold.

If you are going to move in and out of your garage this might work when you don't have help.

Cheers! Don

Thank you for the tip!
Have heard similar advice before and the single obstacle preventing this practice is... a small hump of asphalt outside of the garage door. My guess is that it was built to keep water (from heavy rains) from entering the garage. Due to that ~2 inch bump, I know that getting a dolly over it will require even more careful handling.

 

[ILMSTMF]

Option D: Lift bag and let drain, cover the kettle, boil within a day or 2. The wort will be pasteurized and with the lid on there will be little getting in. Any micro organisms that do won't have much time to multiply and they will all die with the boil.

I mash one day (usually in the evening) and boil the next day quite often. It works very well for me and I always heat the wort with a cover on the kettle to at least 185 before shutting everything down. The next morning I remove the kettle lid and proceed with the boil.

Bringing this thread out of the grave. @RM-MN @jwelch1103 - I still haven't performed a "split brew day" like we've discussed. I'm now wondering safely, how many days I can wait before boiling? Want to boil / finish Saturday but don't have time on Friday night to do the mash. For argument sake, let's say I did the mash Thursday night. Safe?
The reality is, Thursday just got filled in so, can't mash then. Wednesday evening mash, Saturday morning boil. Safe?

Thank you!

 

[RM-MN]

Bringing this thread out of the grave. @RM-MN @jwelch1103 - I still haven't performed a "split brew day" like we've discussed. I'm now wondering safely, how many days I can wait before boiling? Want to boil / finish Saturday but don't have time on Friday night to do the mash. For argument sake, let's say I did the mash Thursday night. Safe?
The reality is, Thursday just got filled in so, can't mash then. Wednesday evening mash, Saturday morning boil. Safe?

Thank you!

Mash Friday night, boil Saturday morning should be perfectly safe. However with each passing day any bacteria will have a chance to get started. While it probably (just probably) won't make you sick it definitely can change the flavor with sour being the flavor I would expect.

 

[ILMSTMF]

That probably settles it. Not going to risk letting that mash sit that long before boiling. Thank you!

 

[BBQB]

I do split batches fairly regularly with no side effects that I can perceive. I always do the mash at night and boil first thing in the morning

 

[milldoggy]

Just did a no sparge overnight mash. Used lots of old comforters and wrapped the mash tuned, only lost 15degs in 12 hrs. My new favorite way. Made the morning a breeze

 

[TechFanMD]

Your wort will be cool in the morning - meaning it will take longer to bring to a boil than if you tried to boil right after the mash. This will mean the total time to finish is longer.

Instead of the overnight Mash: Maybe buy a bucket heater (like a stock heater, I got mine for $40 on Amazon) and put it on a timer so you can have mash temp water first thing in the morning. Go get your mash started in your preheated water before you do anything else in the morning. By the time you get your regular clothes on, grab a cup of coffee, and get ready for the boil, the mash will be about over. I even do evening brewing sessions by setting a timer to have water hot right when I get off of work (I work from home, so I do have more time than most), I eat with my family during the mash, then bang out a boil and cleanup in a few hours.

The time saved using this method vs mashing one day and boiling the next is that you aren't waiting for water to boil for the mash, then aren't waiting as long to go from Mash temp to boil. The heat stick takes a while to heat, but I don't care because it does it while I sleep or while I'm at work.

 

[Calder]

I tried this a couple of weeks ago. Worked fine, but found it really didn't save too much time due to having to heat everything up. Yes, saved an hour for the mash and sparge on brew day. Overall I think it added about an hour to the process. I'll try it again as it seems t better fit in with 'life'.​

 

[ILMSTMF]

I tried this a couple of weeks ago. Worked fine, but found it really didn't save too much time due to having to heat everything up. Yes, saved an hour for the mash and sparge on brew day. Overall I think it added about an hour to the process. I'll try it again as it seems t better fit in with 'life'.​

Thing is, my whole process morning of brew involves

• heating that strike water for mash
• mill grains
• dough in
• mash rest
• bag hoist

Easily 1h30m. When the kettle moves out to be brought to boil, I can (and do) go hands off for a bit while it heats to a boil. That's more time I get with my family.

Ultimately, that's what I'm trying to accomplish. Weekend gets so booked up with family stuff that brewing becomes an obstacle for all of us. On a good day, the whole process will take me 5 hours. Splitting it up, I feel, will be beneficial for scheduling. Again, the concern was "is it safe?" but I believe that the fears have been calmed. For the folks who are fortunate enough to achieve 3 - 4 hour days, I salute you but I'm not there yet.
Cheers!

 

[TechFanMD]

Thing is, my whole process morning of brew involves

• heating that strike water for mash
• mill grains
• dough in
• mash rest
• bag hoist

Easily 1h30m. When the kettle moves out to be brought to boil, I can (and do) go hands off for a bit while it heats to a boil. That's more time I get with my family.

Ultimately, that's what I'm trying to accomplish. Weekend gets so booked up with family stuff that brewing becomes an obstacle for all of us. On a good day, the whole process will take me 5 hours. Splitting it up, I feel, will be beneficial for scheduling. Again, the concern was "is it safe?" but I believe that the fears have been calmed. For the folks who are fortunate enough to achieve 3 - 4 hour days, I salute you but I'm not there yet.
Cheers!

Sounds like a solid plan. The reason I do what I mentioned in my post is for the same reasons as you - to get the brew day down to a more reasonable level. The 'low hanging fruit' for me was waiting for water to hear. You'll come up with other ideas and will probably have shorter brew days as well.

 

[ILMSTMF]

Update - it went well!

Except, it was more of a pause on same day instead of over night.

• dough in at 9:30AM
• temp measures 154F
• left grains soaking, covered lid, wrapped kettle in blankets.
• 1h45m later, temp measures 147F
• in total, the grains soaked for 7 hours before I hoisted the bag, squeezed it, then brought to burner for boil. At that point, temp had dropped to 125F.

I have no expert knowledge of how this will have affected efficiency, if even at all. But my actual gravity and total volume were higher than targets. (target OG 1058, actual OG 1062. 5.5 gallons into fermentor targeted, 6 gallons made it in). I am in the camp that "better for the gravity to be higher than target instead of lower" so, I'm good!